A frequently updated source for business news and comment on the universe of smaller, emerging US-based air transport companies.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

The Value of a Good Lawyer

Excellent news here about Skybus.

As long as you have a strategy and legal team that can lock this airport down, then we are very much behind their apparent interest in Meachem Field. It is an airport that we have supported for quite some time as a new entrant focus city.

It has all the key ingredients:-Large demo profile that, with all things being equal, would choose the airport over the current airport-Zero competition-Limited airside facilities (helps to keep competitors out)

Of course the major downside to FTW is the unpredictability of what AA will do. Skybus needs to lease every acre of space available at that airport right now and make sure those agreements are air tight.

Then, of course, they will need to:-Fly non-stop to the places people want to fly to as a full focus city (definitely not CMH non-stop)-Offer a very low fare (due to their understanding of the true drivers of low costs by an LCC)-Provide a tolerable onboard product-Do everything not to screw up the huge advantage of going out of a smaller, yet more convenient airport

Mark our words here...if they choose airports with similar characterisitcs as FTW as focus cities Skybus will not only be successful, they will be wildly successful. Of course the article explicitly states that they are looking at FTW as an outstation.

We should not close this post without mentioning for the umpteenth time that we do not at all like Columbus as their first focus city.

5 Comments:

In our mind, they need to fly non-stop to at least the top 10 FTW markets to be able to achieve critical mass from a marketing perpspective.

The focus city model I am describing has almost no difference to that of the focus city models of easyJet and Ryanair. When a person in Fort Worth thinks of flying, they need to first think of Skybus. To be able to achieve that level of mind share they must fly to a significant percentage of the places the people of Fort Worth want to fly to (usually covered in about 10 markets), they need to fly there non-stop and they need to do it with sufficient frequency (min 3x to biz markets) at a very low fare.